PowerProtect Data Manager 19.17 Virtual Machine User Guide

Backup of individual folders within a virtual machine is not supported

PowerProtect Data Manager only supports image-level backup and disk-level backup. You cannot perform backups of individual folders within the virtual machine.

Backups fail for resource pools recreated with the same name as deleted pool

When you delete a resource pool from a vCenter server and then create a resource pool with the same name, backups fail. Reconfigure the protection group with the newly created resource pool.

Datastore and datacenter names cannot contain special characters

Using special characters in datastore and datacenter names can cause problems with the VM Direct Engine, such as failed backups and restore operations with both VMware vSphere Storage APIs – Data Protection (VADP) and Transparent Snapshots Data Mover (TSDM) protection mechanisms. Special characters include the following: % & * $ # @ ! \ / : * ? " < > | ;, and so on.

DD Boost over fibre channel not supported

PowerProtect Data Manager does not support DD Boost over fibre channel (DFC).

Error when changing configuration of many virtual machines at the same time

When configuring or unconfiguring many virtual machines (300 or more) in a protection policy, an error message might display indicating that the request is too large. You can click OK and proceed, but system performance will be impacted due to the size of the request. As a best practice, it is recommended to use protection rules to automatically determine which assets are assigned to protection policies when the assets are discovered.

Hot Add backups fail when datacenter names contain special characters

Virtual machine backups fail when the datacenter name contains special characters and the transport mode specified for VM Direct backups is Hot Add only. Avoid using special characters in the datacenter name, for example, "Datacenter_#2@3", or specify Hotadd with fallback to Network Block Device for the transport mode.

Hot Add backups fail when virtual machine protection policy configured with Virtual Flash Read Cache value

"Backup has FAILED. Failed to backup
virtual disk \"Hard disk <no.>\". Failed to initialize Block
Reader. Failed to open source VMDK \<dataStore
name>/<VM_Name.vmdk>\": VDDK Error: 13: You do not have
access rights to this file. (500)".

I/O contention when all Virtual Machines on a single data store

I/O contention may occur during snapshot creation and backup read operations when all Virtual Machines reside on a single datastore.

Limitations to SQL Server application consistent data protection

Review the SQL Server application-consistent protection support limitations in the section "Microsoft application agent for SQL Server application-aware protection" of the PowerProtect Data Manager Microsoft SQL Server User Guide.

Network configuration settings are not restored with virtual machine after recovery of a vApp backup

Network configuration settings are not backed up with the virtual machine as part of a vApp backup. As a result, when you restore a vApp backup, you must manually reconfigure the network settings.

NFC log level settings

To assist with I/O performance analysis, set the NFC log level in the VM Direct Engine configuration file to its highest value, for example, vixDiskLib.nfc.LogLevel=4. Setting the log level in the server for NFC asynchronous I/O is not required. You can then run the VDDK sample code and evaluate I/O performance by examining the vddk.log and the vpxa log file.

Protection fails for virtual machine name containing { or }

A PowerProtect Data Manager virtual machine protection policy fails to back up virtual machines that contain the special characters { or } in the name. This limitation exists with vSphere versions previous to 6.7. If you do not have vSphere 6.7 or later deployed, avoid using these two characters in virtual machine names.

SAN transport mode not supported

PowerProtect Data Manager supports only the Hot Add and NBD transport modes. The Hot Add mode is the default transport mode. For a protection policy, you can specify to use only Hot Add mode, only NBD mode, or Hot Add mode with fallback to NBD of Hot Add is not available.

Specify NBD for datastores if VM Direct should use NBD mode only

For a VM Direct Engine that only uses NBD transport mode, specify datastores that only perform NBD backups.

Thin provisioning not preserved during NFS datastore recovery

When backing up thin-provisioned virtual machines or disks for virtual machines on NFS datastores, an NFS datastore recovery does not preserve thin provisioning. For more information, see VMware knowledge base article 2137818.

Virtual machine alert "VM MAC conflict" might appear after successful recovery of virtual machine

After performing a successful recovery of a virtual machine through vCenter version 6, an alert might appear indicating a "VM MAC conflict" for the recovered virtual machine, even though the new virtual machine will have a different and unique MAC address. You must manually acknowledge the alert or clear the alert after resolving the MAC address conflict. Note that this alert can be triggered even when the MAC address conflict is resolved.

For more information, see the VMware release notes.

VM Direct Engine configuration settings cannot be modified after adding the VM Direct Engine

After adding a VM Direct Engine, the only field you can modify is the Transport Mode. Any other configuration changes require you to delete and then re-add the VM Direct Engine.

Additional VM Direct actions provides more information.

VM Direct Engine configured with both IPv4 and IPv6 is not supported

The VM Direct Engine does not support both IPv4 and IPv6 at the same time. If you want to run backups and restores using the VM Direct Engine, use either only IPv4 or only IPv6.

VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler cluster support limitations

The PowerProtect Data Manager server is supported in a VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) cluster, with the following considerations:

• During backup of a virtual machine, host-vmotion or storage-vmotion is not permitted on the virtual machine. The option to migrate will be disabled in the vSphere Client UI.
• A storage-vmotion operation cannot be performed on a VM Direct Engine that is currently is in use for a backup or restore with Hot Add disks attached.

VMware limitations by vSphere version

VMware limitations for vSphere 6.0 and later versions are available at VMware Configuration Maximums.

VMware snapshot for backup is not supported for independent disks

When using independent disks you cannot perform VMware snapshot for backup.